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Monuments, Traffic, and Loud Rock

One of my weekends away last semester revolved around the Dover, D.E. NASCAR race, which probably seems odd to some readers. My other half is a sports journalist and between my pursuit of a master’s degree at NYU, his travel schedule, and our main home located in another state — it sometimes leads to me packing up the homework and hitting the road to visit him.

I’ll be honest; over the weekend I only went to the race track once, for the main event. The rest of the time I studied, had an excursion to D.C., and attempted to stay out of the Casino (Dover Downs Hotel & Casino) because students on a budget should not gamble.

If I say it like a mantra maybe it will work next time…

It is an interesting drive from the race track to Washington D.C., first a lot of fields, then urban areas and loads and loads of traffic – insert sigh here. But the drive is not the problem; it is the traffic and parking situation in D.C.

It had been such a long time since I had visited the area that I had a few areas that I really wanted to see for the sake of curiosity and also for future post-education planning. I decided to head to the Georgetown area first, which proved a bad decision. There were entirely too many people and I drove around and around attempting to park for an unreasonable amount of time. By the time I parked I really only had time for a late lunch and then off to what I really wanted to see. However, the jewel in this overpopulated neighborhood was the restaurant, Taj of India. The staff was friendly and the food was great — loads of veggie/vegan options.

Next I drove over to monument row. It really is worth a visit young and old, and if you visited as a child, go again, I promise it will look much different.

After finally parking…I went to the Washington Monument at the National Mall, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the Veteran’s Memorial, Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. They are pretty amazing in person.

When I arrived at the Lincoln Memorial, I heard really loud music and followed the sounds off to the side of the memorial and stumbled across a loud rock band, kind of odd and wonderful at the same time.

Leaving D.C. was another miserable driving experience and by the time I was in the middle of corn fields it was extremely dark and difficult to see, until I what I believe was an Amish horse and carriage that appeared in the middle of nowhere, lit up like Christmas, thankfully, otherwise I would have run it over.

Moral of the story – do not drive a car in D.C. If you are driving from out of town save time and aggravation; find metro stations outside D.C., park and take the metro in to town. If you are staying in D.C., take the metro, cabs and walk. I won’t do that again…lesson learned.